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She and a girlfriend were sitting in the grass by the lagoon at Garfield Park in Chicago.

He and two buddies were rowing. They saw the women, parked the boat and got out.

And for the 72 years since, Micky and Sonny — my great-great- aunt and uncle — have been basically inseparable.

Their full names are Mildred and Antone, but nobody calls them that. There's nothing spectacular about Micky and Sonny Murphy. I just know if I ever tie the knot, I want my marriage to look a lot like theirs.

Picking arguments

Sonny and Micky Murphy at their home in Casa with their grand-niece Debby Eubanks, the columnist's mother, on Nov. 24, 2017.(Photo: Special to Clarion Ledger)

Aunt Micky, 92, has been known to start an argument with Uncle Sonny, 93, while he's driving, just to keep him awake behind the wheel.

"I sure have done that. And he would catch on immediately, and we’d have a bit of a laugh about it," she said.

"That was mostly on our trips back and forth (from Chicago) to Arkansas," Sonny said. "I remember that. (Our niece) Irma used to ride with us, and she’d pick an argument with me, too. That was cool."

They both chuckled. They were talking to me on their landline, each of them holding a phone.

Micky and Sonny have had their arguments, but they tend to be short-lived — "I'd get hungry and say, 'It's time to eat,'" Sonny said — and nobody ever sleeps on the couch.

That's a pretty good record for 70 years.

From the lagoon to the church

Sonny Murphy rowing - the same thing he was doing when he first saw Micky Gordon at Garfield Park in Chicago.(Photo: Special to Clarion Ledger)

Sonny and his friends started off on the wrong foot that day at the lagoon in 1945.

"As boys always do, we thought we were being real cute saying dumb things. Like when we found out (Micky) was from Arkansas, we went on about 'no shoes’ and hillbillies, and that didn’t go too well at all," he said.

But he made sure to change course. "She struck me as someone really special. It wasn't so much the prettiness, but the personality."

"I thought he was kinda funny," Micky said with a laugh.

Micky had followed her parents from the small town of Casa (pronounced KAY-suh), Arkansas, to Chicago to find work. She got a job at a factory making airplane parts for the war.

Sonny grew up in the Windy City and also worked at a factory — where, just before he and Micky were supposed to go out the first time, "I had 800 pounds of steel fall on my right foot," he said.

He spent 18 days in the hospital, and Micky visited every day. (With her brother, she noted.)

Micky saw that Sonny was "a really good moral person," and "that was interesting to me," she said. He started attending church with her and her family.

"Had he refused (to go), I might've broke up with him."

They dated for two years, married, bought a 1936 Ford ("It run like a jewel, I tell you," Micky said) and raised three boys in Chicago. They got together with their niece Irma and her husband, Bob (my grandparents) every week for card games. Around Halloween they'd have costume parties.

But mind you, these parties were not ruckus. Neither Sonny nor Micky drank. Even when Sonny was a teenager, chasing girls and playing poker, he never cared for alcohol.

"I used to go to some of the taverns with my friends, but I would drink 7Up while they were drinking their beer."

From Chicago to Casa

Micky, Sonny and their kids, from left, Greg, Gary and Michael, at a Halloween party in 1961.(Photo: Special to Clarion Ledger)

Micky and Sonny saw Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin perform in Chicago. They saw country and western stars. They went to the Field Museum. Adler Planetarium. Grant Park. Buckingham Fountain.

Then in 1984, Sonny retired from Dana Corporation as warehouse and traffic manager, and he and Micky moved to Casa in 1985. They'd honeymooned at nearby Petit Jean State Park 38 years ago, but now they were here permanently. In Casa, Arkansas. Population 166.

"I missed (Chicago) because all of a sudden it was all gone," Sonny said. "But we went so many places with (Micky's sister and brother-in-law), and that helped. (And) I still had my wife with me. And that took care of that."

Of course Micky treasured the time with her parents, who were still living in Casa, and memories of her younger years there: "(When I was a kid) we sung, we read the Bible at night, we had an old pump organ my sister played and she could yodel like you couldn’t believe."

Micky and Sonny took vacations, watched their grandkids grow up and joined Micky's family's church, Casa Assembly of God.

I've visited Casa Assembly many times, though I might be overdue for a visit. Sonny is typically one of the first people there, always with a kiss on the cheek for me. Micky tells me how pretty I look, even though she's the most beautiful woman in our family.

Micky was the church secretary for 25 years, counting the offering and attendance. There are actually two offerings — a regular one, and one for spare change. During the latter, I hear Micky's voice above all others as we sing:

"Dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping;
Hear the pennies fall!
Ev'ry one for Jesus,
He will get them all."

'Wouldn't trade it'

Micky Gordon at age 18 in 1943, two years before she met her future husband in Chicago.(Photo: Special to Clarion Ledger)

Micky and Sonny have outlived Irma and Bob (who also retired to Casa), but they have plenty of other family to see. Sonny loves mowing and working outside. Micky walks down to the creek out back or tends to her herbs. She's turned over her church secretary duties to her niece Kathy.

If I call Micky or Sonny, I get them both. I'll be talking to Sonny, and then Micky will chime in on the other receiver. They're a package deal.

I asked Micky how she thought her life would've gone if she hadn't met Sonny.

"I’m sure that I wouldn’t have stayed single looking for him," she said, laughing. "I didn’t know he was around."

Sonny's theory on what might've been: "I had a lot of girlfriends in Illinois. I probably would’ve eventually married, but ... I just don’t see anybody that I would’ve been as happy with. ... On a scale of 1 to 10, she's a 20. She's really sweet."

Any other advice for young couples?

"I just say respect each other would be the main thing. And know that nobody is perfect," Micky said.

"And find a good church to go to," Sonny added.

"That would be the main thing," she agreed.

Thoughts on 70 years and onward, "till death do us part"? Sonny sums it up: